sest texture may also be noticed. Raiment of camel's
hair, strapped with a leathern girdle after the manner of John
the Baptist, may be seen any day, and the wearers are not regarded
as objects of commiseration.

Their camel, too, is wonderfully adapted to its habitat. Provided
with two humps, it carries a natural saddle; and, clothed in long
wool, yellow, brown or black, it looks in winter a lordly beast.
Its fleece is never shorn, but is shed in summer. At that season
the poor naked animal is the most pitiable of creatures. In the
absence of railways and carriage roads, it fills the place of the
ship of the desert and performs the heaviest tasks, such as the
transporting of coals and salt. Most docile of slaves, at a word
from its master it kneels down and quietly accepts its burden.

At Peking there is a lamasary where four hundred Mongol monks are
maintained in idleness at the expense of the Emperor. Their manners
are those of highwaymen. They have been known to lay rough
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hands on visitors in order to extort a charitable dole; and, if
rumour may be trusted, their morals are far from exemplary.

My knowledge of the Mongols is derived chiefly from what I have
seen of them in Peking. I have also had a glimpse of their country
at Kalgan, beyond the Great Wall. A few lines from a caravan song
by the Rev. Mark Williams give a picture of a long journey by those
slow coaches:

"Inching along, we are inching along,
At the pace of a snail, we are inching along,
Our horses are hardy, our camels are strong,
We all shall reach Urga by inching along.

"The things that are common, all men will despise;
But these in the desert we most highly prize.
For water is worth more than huge bags of gold
And argols than diamonds of value untold."
--_A Flight for Life_, Pilgrim Press, Boston.

Politically Turkestan is not Mongolia, but Tamerlane, though born
there, was a Mongol. His descendants were the Moguls of India. At
different epochs peoples called Turks and Huns have wandered over
the Mongolian plateau, and Mongols have swept over Turkestan. To
draw a line of demarcation is neither easy nor important. In the
Turkestan of to-day the majority of the people follow the prophet
of Mecca. Russia has absorbed most of the khanates, and has tried
more than once to encroach on portions belonging to China. In one
instance she was foiled and compelled to disgorge by the courage of
Viceroy Chang, a story which